1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to telecommunications and, in particular, to voice identification. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to originating a billed transaction at a destination telephony device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Telephone service has created communication channels worldwide, and those channels continue to expand with the advent of cellular and other wireless services. A person can simply take a telephone off-hook and dial a destination number or press a send button and be connected to a telephone line around the world.
Today, the public switching telephone network (PSTN), wireless networks, and private networks telephone services are based on the identification of the wireless telephone or wireline that a calling party uses. Services are personalized according to wireless telephone or wireline telephone number, where services associated with one telephone number are not accessible for another telephone number assigned to the same subscriber. For example, there is typically a first set of service features and billing options assigned to a home line number, a second set of service features and billing options assigned to an office line number, and a third set of service features and billing options assigned to a cellular telephone number. The networks process calls to and from each of these different subscriber telephones based on a separate telephone number.
Many of the services provided by telephone switching systems are implemented in order to reduce or alleviate the effects of telemarketers and other unwanted callers. For example, one service available from most telephone service providers is caller ID. Caller ID provides the name of a line subscriber and the line number from which a call originates to the telephony device receiving the call. Thus, an individual receiving a call is able to determine, before answering the call, the line number from which a call originates.
However, caller ID has a side effect of allowing others to capture the same individual's line number and pass the line number along to a telemarketing call list. Therefore, an additional service allows the line subscriber to block caller ID from being sent when a call originates from the line number, such that call recipients only receive a signal that caller ID is blocked for the line number. However, telemarketers may also block caller ID for telemarketer based line numbers, thus defeating the original purpose of caller ID.
An additional annoyance is created when telemarketers call a wireless telephone. The recipient then wastes valuable minutes to answer the call and decline the telemarkter's offer. Further, telemarketers often interrupt a household during valuable family time.
Therefore, in view of the foregoing, it would be advantageous to provide a method, system, and program for requiring callers to compensate call recipients for their time. In particular, it would be advantageous to originate a billed transaction to a caller from the device receiving a call. In addition, it would be advantageous to vary the compensation required for call recipients according to the time of day or other variables. Further, it would be advantageous to impose a premium on calls with blocked caller ID in order to deter telemarketers and other unwanted callers.